Delirium wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
poll that would make a 3-revert per day limit policy has 45 votes to 6 [68] Jimbo has not decided yet whether to allow admins the ability to block users for 24 hours for breaking this rule.
I'd like to lobby for this to happy ASAP. The rule has a massive majority (nearly 90%), and we need some way of enforcing it. It should, hopefully very quickly, become simply unacceptable to revert any one article more than 3 times in a day. Once you've wrangled back and forth a few times, you stop. There is really no justification at *all* for a revert-war going on for longer than that---it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
What a minute!
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not. Nowhere on that page did it say that the poll really was about whether to allow admins to block a user that reverts three times or not.
Many of the 51+ persons that has voted probably did not either understand that the vote was about bannings. If that is what the vote is about and not just a guideline.
BL
Erik Moeller wrote:
Bjorn-
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not.
Uh-huh. That'll work for Wik. He loves guidelines. They can be easily ignored.
Well, Erik, I'm sympathetic to that, but I'm not sure that a 24-hour ban power for sysops is the minimally intrusive solution.
What I tend to follow is a "strict scrutiny" rule that says that any policy involving curtailment of editing should be narrowly tailored to achieve some legitimate interest.
It might make more sense for me to just say that it's policy with a capital P, but to *not* introduce the 24-hour temp ban idea. Rather, it's that repeated violations are grounds for the arbitration committee to do something about it, for example.
There *is* a legitimate interest here. Edit warring is unproductive. Revert-edit-warring is the least productive kind of edit war, too. A revert is a slap in the face. Sometimes (vandalism), a slap in the face is the right thing to do. But other times, it's just a way to say 'screw you' to someone who is sincerely trying to find a compromise.
--Jimbo
Jimmy-
Well, Erik, I'm sympathetic to that, but I'm not sure that a 24-hour ban power for sysops is the minimally intrusive solution.
It's not supposed to minimally intrusive. It's supposed to be effective. Right now we have the situation that there is a set of users who are quite productive, but who use edit warring as a technique to get an article into the revision they want it to be in.
That is so much in contradiction with everything we stand for that we should take immediate countermeasures. It creates a very bad impression for newbies if we let people get away with that kind of behavior without an immediate reaction.
A 24 hour ban is not the same as a regular ban in the effects on the user. We can come up with a nice, friendly standard text, basically telling the user to calm down and when they are ready to respect our policies, please return to editing. It won't develop into the kind of problems we had with Lir, because there's no incentive to create another identity if you can just keep editing under your regular one 24 hours later. We could even add a clause that if they pledge to stop edit warring immediately, they can be unbanned immediately (of course if they break that pledge, they will be rebanned).
Now some people will bring up the issue of "rights" and "speech". But edit warring is an effective method to suppress other people's speech and to abuse other people's rights. It's like shouting over whatever someone else tries to say. The other person can either also start shouting, or give up in frustration.
In any civil discussion in the real world, you would tell someone who tries to shout down everyone else to leave until they calm down. All I, and many others, are asking for is to apply that same principle to Wikipedia.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Now some people will bring up the issue of "rights" and "speech". But edit warring is an effective method to suppress other people's speech and to abuse other people's rights. It's like shouting over whatever someone else tries to say. The other person can either also start shouting, or give up in frustration.
*nod* I agree with you completely on that. Despite the impression, Wikipedia is not an anarchy nor a "free speech zone" (in that sense). It's an encyclopedia project.
In any civil discussion in the real world, you would tell someone who tries to shout down everyone else to leave until they calm down. All I, and many others, are asking for is to apply that same principle to Wikipedia.
Yes.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote
Despite the impression, Wikipedia is not an anarchy nor a "free speech zone" (in that sense). It's an encyclopedia project.
As we speak, Wik and Anthony Di Pierro have both reverted [[interesting and uninteresting numbers]] three times - within a total time of 19 minutes.
Assuming this is not a circus, we need to have the three-revert rule to deal with these clowns, and really as soon as possible.
Charles
Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
What a minute!
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not. Nowhere on that page did it say that the poll really was about whether to allow admins to block a user that reverts three times or not.
Many of the 51+ persons that has voted probably did not either understand that the vote was about bannings. If that is what the vote is about and not just a guideline.
While that's true, I'd still like it to be decreed as a rule. If we sit around for another vote, nothing will ever get done.
Either that, or people need to stop whining to the arbitration committee about people who revert a lot. Either come up with guidelines to fix the problem, or allow reverts to continue. We can't simply ban people who revert a lot who we don't like, and allow reverts in general to go unpunished. I, for one, will be voting against any bans for "excessive reverting" on the arbitration committee, as I do not feel this is a problem to be solved on a case-by-case basis.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
What a minute!
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not. Nowhere on that page did it say that the poll really was about whether to allow admins to block a user that reverts three times or not. Many of the 51+ persons that has voted probably did not either understand that the vote was about bannings. If that is what the vote is about and not just a guideline.
While that's true, I'd still like it to be decreed as a rule. If we sit around for another vote, nothing will ever get done.
I prefer guidelines instead of rules. The people who set about to "enforce" a rule can easily be as much of a problem as those they are criticising. Admittedly, some of those same people see very little difference between a guideline and a rule.
Either that, or people need to stop whining to the arbitration committee about people who revert a lot. Either come up with guidelines to fix the problem, or allow reverts to continue. We can't simply ban people who revert a lot who we don't like, and allow reverts in general to go unpunished. I, for one, will be voting against any bans for "excessive reverting" on the arbitration committee, as I do not feel this is a problem to be solved on a case-by-case basis.
I agree that these matters need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article is very different from one who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I agree that these matters need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article is very different from one who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles.
I guess I don't see what the problem with solving them all in the same way is. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article will get a single 24-hour ban, which is not really the end of the world. A person who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles will be repeatedly banned for 24-hour periods, resulting in effectively a permanent ban until they decide to stop engaging in revert-wars.
-Mark
Just to keep everyone guessing here, ha ha, I'm actually very sympathetic to what Mark is saying.
One of the things that's tempting about the 3-revert rule is that it's easy to administer and judge after the fact. There are precious few borderline cases. Reverting is reverting, anyone can check the logs after the fact and see it. This is very different from subjective judgments like "hostility" and "rude" and even "vandalism".
If we had a rule that say "3 reverts and you're out for 24 hours", it would be fairly hard for sysops to abuse it. It at least has that as a merit.
Delirium wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I agree that these matters need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article is very different from one who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles.
I guess I don't see what the problem with solving them all in the same way is. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article will get a single 24-hour ban, which is not really the end of the world. A person who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles will be repeatedly banned for 24-hour periods, resulting in effectively a permanent ban until they decide to stop engaging in revert-wars.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Tuesday 09 March 2004 15:00, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Just to keep everyone guessing here, ha ha, I'm actually very sympathetic to what Mark is saying.
One of the things that's tempting about the 3-revert rule is that it's easy to administer and judge after the fact. There are precious few borderline cases. Reverting is reverting, anyone can check the logs after the fact and see it. This is very different from subjective judgments like "hostility" and "rude" and even "vandalism".
If we had a rule that say "3 reverts and you're out for 24 hours", it would be fairly hard for sysops to abuse it. It at least has that as a merit.
Actually, it would be very easy for three users, sysops or not, to gang upon a single user, communicate via e-mail, and "independently" revert user's changes.
On 03/10/04 06:50, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
On Tuesday 09 March 2004 15:00, Jimmy Wales wrote:
If we had a rule that say "3 reverts and you're out for 24 hours", it would be fairly hard for sysops to abuse it. It at least has that as a merit.
Actually, it would be very easy for three users, sysops or not, to gang upon a single user, communicate via e-mail, and "independently" revert user's changes.
Or one user with three names.
- d.
To be expected from groups with an axe to grind or a political viewpoint they wish to impose.
Fred
From: Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 07:50:39 +0100 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The 3-revert rule
Actually, it would be very easy for three users, sysops or not, to gang upon a single user, communicate via e-mail, and "independently" revert user's changes.
Fred Bauder wrote
[Ganging up on reverts] To be expected from groups with an axe to grind or
a political viewpoint
they wish to impose.
I think this does happen to some extent (it may go on in the Oder-Neisse line disputes, for example). If this were used systematically under a three-revert limitation, that would be easy to see from a page history after a week. (Which isn't so long in wiki time, in fact.)
Charles
It can come from either end of the political spectrum. Ec
Fred Bauder wrote:
To be expected from groups with an axe to grind or a political viewpoint they wish to impose.
Fred
From: Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The 3-revert rule
Actually, it would be very easy for three users, sysops or not, to gang upon a single user, communicate via e-mail, and "independently" revert user's changes.
Delirium wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I agree that these matters need to be considered on a case-by-case basis. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article is very different from one who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles.
I guess I don't see what the problem with solving them all in the same way is. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article will get a single 24-hour ban, which is not really the end of the world. A person who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles will be repeatedly banned for 24-hour periods, resulting in effectively a permanent ban until they decide to stop engaging in revert-wars.
OK! But if we're going to do that, it has to apply to both parties in an edit war, even when the dispute involves an acknowledged idiot versus a respected sysop. :-) Every edit war has at least two participants.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Delirium wrote:
I guess I don't see what the problem with solving them all in the same way is. A person who engages in a protracted revert war on a single article will get a single 24-hour ban, which is not really the end of the world. A person who repeatedly does this across a broad range of articles will be repeatedly banned for 24-hour periods, resulting in effectively a permanent ban until they decide to stop engaging in revert-wars.
OK! But if we're going to do that, it has to apply to both parties in an edit war, even when the dispute involves an acknowledged idiot versus a respected sysop. :-) Every edit war has at least two participants.
Yes, that's what I envisioned. All parties who revert 3 or more times, anyway.
-Mark
At 09:43 AM 3/9/2004 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
OK! But if we're going to do that, it has to apply to both parties in an edit war, even when the dispute involves an acknowledged idiot versus a respected sysop. :-) Every edit war has at least two participants.
If it really is an acknowledged idiot, it shouldn't be too hard to get three respected sysops (or anyone else who happens along for that matter) to each perform a single revert.
Bryan Derksen wrote
If it really is an acknowledged idiot, it shouldn't be too hard to get three respected sysops (or anyone else who happens along for that matter) to each perform a single revert.
Agree. One day we might get faction-fighting, which would be a splitting issue. But I don't see that yet as a serious danger.
Charles
On Wednesday 10 March 2004 10:50, Charles Matthews wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote
If it really is an acknowledged idiot, it shouldn't be too hard to get three respected sysops (or anyone else who happens along for that matter) to each perform a single revert.
Agree. One day we might get faction-fighting, which would be a splitting issue. But I don't see that yet as a serious danger.
Factions fighting against single users are not a serious danger?
Nikola Smolenski wrote
Charles Matthews wrote: Agree. One day we might get faction-fighting, which would be a splitting
issue. But I don't see that yet as a serious danger.
Factions fighting against single users are not a serious danger?
What I meant: group versus group fighting, as factions, could be schismatic. If that did happen, it would be a threat at a level not seen on Wikipedia. But for all the talk (basically as if there was left-right polarization) I don't think that there is much risk of that happening. A few people make tendentious edits, that's all.
As I wrote in another posting here, I think there is some unpleasantness to be found if you look hard.
Charles
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Charles Matthews wrote:
Nikola Smolenski wrote
Charles Matthews wrote: Agree. One day we might get faction-fighting, which would be a splitting
issue. But I don't see that yet as a serious danger.
Factions fighting against single users are not a serious danger?
What I meant: group versus group fighting, as factions, could be schismatic. If that did happen, it would be a threat at a level not seen on Wikipedia. But for all the talk (basically as if there was left-right polarization) I don't think that there is much risk of that happening. A few people make tendentious edits, that's all.
As I wrote in another posting here, I think there is some unpleasantness to be found if you look hard.
It's not that hard to find: look at the page history for any topic touching on Israel or Palestine.
Geoff
Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not. Nowhere on that page did it say that the poll really was about whether to allow admins to block a user that reverts three times or not.
Many of the 51+ persons that has voted probably did not either understand that the vote was about bannings. If that is what the vote is about and not just a guideline.
I share Bjorn's concern.
It's one thing to say that we have a very strong community guideline or norm that says 3 reverts in a day is enough. It's quite another thing to introduce an entirely new paradigm in which 24 hour bans are made for things that are not really emergency situations.
I'm not 100% opposed to the idea, but my foot dragging on making any sort of decree about this is grounded in the fact that I see this as a rather radical departure from past practice.
--Jimbo
Please forgive me if this has already been suggested; I only just subscribed to this list yesterday.
I think the 3-revert should be a guideline, with a direct warning on the user's talk page when it is violated. If the user continues to revert the page, and doesn't at that point start having a sane conversation about how to deal with the issue, then the person is being obsequious and uncommunicative and that is ample reason for a 24-hour ban.
moink
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
When *I* voted on that poll some week ago, the poll was about whether there should be a *guideline* that reads "do not do more than three reverts" or not. Nowhere on that page did it say that the poll really was about whether to allow admins to block a user that reverts three times or not.
Many of the 51+ persons that has voted probably did not either understand that the vote was about bannings. If that is what the vote is about and not just a guideline.
I share Bjorn's concern.
It's one thing to say that we have a very strong community guideline or norm that says 3 reverts in a day is enough. It's quite another thing to introduce an entirely new paradigm in which 24 hour bans are made for things that are not really emergency situations.
I'm not 100% opposed to the idea, but my foot dragging on making any sort of decree about this is grounded in the fact that I see this as a rather radical departure from past practice.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004, Theresa Robinson wrote:
Please forgive me if this has already been suggested; I only just subscribed to this list yesterday.
I think the 3-revert should be a guideline, with a direct warning on the user's talk page when it is violated. If the user continues to revert the page, and doesn't at that point start having a sane conversation about how to deal with the issue, then the person is being obsequious and uncommunicative and that is ample reason for a 24-hour ban.
While I don't entirely agree with you, Theresa, I've seen some evidence that supports your POV:
* Sometimes even the most veteran & patient of contributors gets her/his button pushed & lapses into a reversion war. (Of course, said contributor shuld immediately step away form the computer & get involved in Real Life for the next 24 hours, but I know I can take Wikipedia too seriously at times.)
* A poor contributor was single-handedly fighting vandalism on [[Saint Peter]], & left a thoughtful comment on the third reversion. I'm sure other people fighting vandals feel the same way.
*I've seen statements from some contributors that they know they are likely to get banned, & all a 24-hour ban will do is make them wait 24 hours before continuing to revert.
I just wish there was a better way to ensure that (to use terms from Transactional Analysis) people working on Wikipedia were listening to their adult, & not their child. Enforcing a 3-revert rule right now seems to be the easiest first step.
Geoff